page_title: Geotechnical engineering
section_title: Shallow foundations
hierarchical_section_title: Geotechnical engineering / Building foundations / Shallow foundations
caption_attribution_description: Slab on grade construction
context_page_description: Geotechnical engineering, also known as geotechnics, is the application of scientific methods and engineering principles to the acquisition, interpretation, and use of knowledge of materials of the Earth's crust and earth materials for the solution of engineering problems and the design of engineering works. It is the applied science of predicting the behavior of the Earth, its various materials and processes towards making the Earth more suitable for human activities and development.
  Geotechnical engineering embraces the fields of soil mechanics and rock mechanics, and has applications in the fields of geology, geophysics, hydrology, and other related sciences. Geotechnics is practiced by both engineering geologists and geotechnical engineers.
context_section_description: Shallow foundations are a type of foundation that transfers the building load to the very near the surface, rather than to a subsurface layer. Shallow foundations typically have a depth to width ratio of less than 1.
caption: Example of a slab-on-grade foundation.
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